About Tom Wolff

Biography

Tom Wolff, Ph.D. is a nationally recognized consultant on coalition building and community development, with over 30 years’ experience training and consulting with individuals, organizations and communities across North America. His clients include federal, state and local government agencies, foundations, hospitals, non-profit organizations, professional associations, and grassroots groups.

Tom has published numerous resources to help communities solve their own problems. His most recent book is The Power of Collaborative Solutions – Six principles and effective tools for building health communities published by Jossey Bass-John Wiley in early 2010.His earlier writings on coalition building include From the Ground Up: A Workbook on Coalition Building and Community Development (with Gillian Kaye, 1997) and The Spirit of the Coalition (with Bill Berkowitz, 2000; American Public Health Association). He is passionate about looking at issues from a community perspective and empowering local communities to solve their own problems. His writings combine theoretical understanding with rich stories and on-the-ground experience.

From 1985 to 2002, Tom Wolff founded and directed Community Partners, a technical assistance and training program in coalition building and community development affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Tom Wolff is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, which granted him its 1985 National Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Practice in Community Psychology and its 1993 Henry V. McNeil Award for Innovation in Community Mental Health. In 2000, he received the For the People Against the Tide Award from Health Care for All for his “outstanding efforts to energize and educate local communities in areas of health care justice.” He has held academic appointments at the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health, the University of Massachusetts Medical School Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and Wellesley College’s Stone Center. He received his undergraduate degree from Clark University and his doctorate from the University of Rochester.

Philosophy

Collaborative processes are the key to addressing the critical challenges that
confront our communities, our states and our nation in the new millennium. Through
collaboration, individuals, organizations and communities become empowered to
impact the world around them. Our work exemplifies the power of these processes.

For example, in the North Quabbin region of Massachusetts, a community collaboration
mobilized the formation of a regional rural transportation system and a grassroots
child abuse prevention program. In Worcester, Massachusetts, a Latino Coalition
became the impetus for hospitals and HMOs to create medical interpreter programs.
In Santa Barbara, an anti-violence collaborative brought police and youth into
a successful partnership, dramatically reducing the violence and homicide rate.
And, from Washington, DC, The National Funding Collaborative on Violence Prevention
successfully launched ten collaboratives across the U.S. to reduce violence and
promote peace by engaging the grassroots community in community empowerment.

These and hundreds of other success stories have been sources of inspiration
and wisdom for us. Yet when we started this work over twenty years ago, we discovered
that the task of creating successful coalitions was very challenging. Many energetic
and well-meaning groups were struggling and failing. We loved their enthusiasm
and wanted to help reduce their failures and frustrations.

As we began to work with these groups and discover the keys to success, we
shared them with others across the country - through newsletters, tip sheets,
consultations and trainings. The positive response to our efforts reinforced our
core process - work closely with a wide variety of collaborative efforts, learn
from them, create tools and processes to help them progress, and share these gems
with others so that more communities can succeed.

These remain the core principles of Tom Wolff & Associates today. We are
proud to offer the specialized tools and services that can help individual organizations
and systems of coalitions work though the challenges of building and maintaining
multi-sector collaborations. We aspire to bring greater joy and a deeper sense
of spirit and purpose to those seeking to create healthy communities - places
where we all want to live and raise our children.

Feedback from Our Clients

“Our contacts with Tom have shown him to be dynamic, extremely
knowledgeable and, most importantly, able to provide very clear, simple and practical
techniques to help a coalition achieve its goals and vital tasks. Tom has a great
style. He helped our group address difficult issues without becoming defensive.
He provided us with important information without lecturing and acknowledged our
accomplishments and achievements.”

Coalition Leader after a Retreat, Ohio

“I have worked in or with organizations for over 15 years and
attended too many trainings to count. I have never before experienced learning
without having to deal with some level (either underlying or overt) of classism
or racism until this session. It was a blessing. Thanks.”

Training Participant, Massachusetts

“I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated the excellent
work you did at this years Summer Institute on Population Health. The feedback
we have received allows me to say that the Institute was a huge success and you
were the reason for it. The participants especially liked the simulation exercise
and the learning that came from it. Many thanks for a job well done.”

Training Institute Coordinator, Canada

“The most useful workshop I’ve attended at the conference.”

Training Participant, Chicago

Letter of Support for Tom Wolfffrom The Institute for Community Peace

Tom Wolff has provided capacity building support to the community partnership
and national office staff of the Institute for Community Peace (ICP) since 1996.
In his role as technical assistant consultant, he has been responsible for the
development of community based collaborative structures that could develop, implement
and sustain primary violence prevention responses to locally identified problems.
His work has been accomplished through individual coaching, site visits and direct
training (i.e., through workshop sessions at conferences and training meetings)
to site directors, community-based collaborative structures and national office
staff.

We count Tom Wolff among our anchor consultants – and a tremendous anchor
he is! I cannot imagine any other consultant, or any other person for that matter,
who combines intellectual capacity with practical know-how in quite the way that
Tom does. He has a tremendous fount of knowledge and he knows just what to do
with it and how to help others use it. He makes quick connections to practice
and research and vice versa. His kind and commonsensical manner means that his
intellect is accessible even to the most uneducated and unpracticed. He understands
well the rhythms of community based collaborative work and is able to tailor his
assistance to local context and local personalities.

A strong believer in local control, Tom helps communities understand, define
and celebrate success on their own terms, while ensuring that their work is based
upon the best available research and practice. He shares his time generously,
as well as the tools of his own trade and encourages those he works with to do
the same – demonstrating his belief that the best way to improve practice
is by wide information dissemination and generous counsel.

At the national level, Tom has helped us to carve out a niche for ICP’s
work, providing key assistance in the development of our conceptual framework
and developing some of the fundamental tools and practices that are the cornerstones
of our training program. His thoughtful and logical approach to program development
has been an invaluable assistance to our own thinking. Tom is also very adaptable,
working well through staff transitions, able to form good working relationships
with a variety of personalities and skill levels.

I have great appreciation for Tom’s passion for social justice, which
is equaled only by his courage and commitment to progressive causes. These qualities
make us aim high in our work and believe in the power of even a small organization
to make a contribution to the development of a better nation. Perhaps as great
a testimony to his work is the affection that we hold for him as a person, Tom
is well-loved and respected by our site partners and national office staff. I
cannot envision a time when I would not want to have a partnership with Tom Wolff.
I recommend him highly and without reservation.